


time does not bring relief (you all have lied)

by jcp_sob_rjl_lmep



Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [13]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Gen, Multiverse Travel, This one is sad folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28392123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jcp_sob_rjl_lmep/pseuds/jcp_sob_rjl_lmep
Summary: The Justice League was in the middle of a meeting when the portal opened. They were immediately wary when Batman stumbled through.This was a different Batman - for one thing, their Batman was sitting at the table with them. But this new man was bigger, bulky and tall; his suit was thicker, with heavier armor and more storage; and most damning, he carried a gun on either hip. Although weapons were pulled out in preparation for an attack, that wasn’t his intent. He fell to one knee, using it to support himself as he looked up and around the table. When he saw their Batman, a breath hissed through his teeth. Still, his voice was deep and steady when he said, “Did the old man ever teach you about good grammar?”Without a word, their Batman leaped across the table, landing nimbly beside the other man and pulling him to his feet.“Don’t follow,” He ordered in that familiar growl, supporting his burden to the zetas. Before anyone could offer protest, the alert went off that they had been used, leaving the rest of the League ready for a fight against no one.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1907791
Comments: 28
Kudos: 225





	time does not bring relief (you all have lied)

The Justice League was in the middle of a meeting when the portal opened. They were immediately wary when Batman stumbled through.

This was a different Batman - for one thing, their Batman was sitting at the table with them. But this new man was bigger, bulky and tall; his suit was thicker, with heavier armor and more storage; and most damning, he carried a gun on either hip. Although weapons were pulled out in preparation for an attack, that wasn’t his intent. He fell to one knee, using it to support himself as he looked up and around the table. When he saw their Batman, a breath hissed through his teeth. Still, his voice was deep and steady when he said, “Did the old man ever teach you about good grammar?”

Without a word, their Batman leaped across the table, landing nimbly beside the other man and pulling him to his feet.

“Don’t follow,” He ordered in that familiar growl, supporting his burden to the zetas. Before anyone could offer protest, the alert went off that they had been used, leaving the rest of the League ready for a fight against no one.

* * *

“Help!” Dick called, stumbling out of the Cave’s zeta tube. It hadn’t been fun stuffing them both in there, but he wasn’t sure his brother could support himself.

Jason.

He was holding the grown-up version of his dead little brother, and it made him want to clutch tighter, to hold the boy that he had lost.

“Dick?” Bruce called back, out of sight. Likely he had been sitting at the Batcomputer. There was a clatter, and a muttered, “ _Damn_ this leg.”

Alfred appeared next, and bless him, he didn’t even falter, stepping forward and under Jason’s other arm, helping Dick support him to the medical area. By the time they were lowering him onto a bed, Bruce had retrieved his crutch and was limping over.

“I need both of you to stay calm,” Dick said firmly, pulling off his cowl with one hand even as he reached over with the other and stopped Alfred from lifting the other Batman’s mask. His was closer to a helmet, actually; there was very little skin showing from anywhere on his body.

“What’s going on?” Bruce demanded. Dick leveled him with a hard look.

“Pull up a stool, Bruce. I am not diving to catch you when your bad knee gives out.”

Bruce was visibly frustrated, but Dick refused to budge, and finally, he was settled in one of the chairs they kept up against the wall for visitors to the medbay, pulled up by the bedside to see. Dick let go of Alfred’s wrist, and the older man disengaged the helmet - at his touch, it hissed open. Alfred gasped and staggered back a step, and Bruce paled.

“Jason,” Dick called, leaning over his brother and gently tapping his cheek. “I need you to wake up. Can you hear me?”

After a moment, hazy blue eyes slid open, landing on Dick with an unamused glint.

“So it’s gonna be one of those days, huh?” He grumbled, beginning to efficiently pat up and down his armor. Around his lower ribs, his hand came away with a bit of red, so he pushed himself up and began stripping his torso of Kevlar. This movement caused him to see Alfred and Bruce, which did give him pause for a moment. He sighed. “It’s gonna be one of those days. Got it.”

With practiced motions, he rooted around the medbay one-handed and still sitting on the bed, gathering supplies and beginning to patch himself up.

At the sound of footsteps on the stairs, all four men turned their attention to Dick’s other little brother - Tim coming down, mouth already open to speak.

“Well. That’s new,” Jason said, confused, blood beginning to leak past his fingers and down his side. “I don’t usually see any of you so young.”

And Dick. Dick’s heart ached to know that Jason didn’t realize this was an alternate universe, that his little brother thought they were all hallucinations - that it was his first instinct, to think that he’s imagining them.

Alfred reached to help, but when his fingers brushed Jason’s bloodstained ones, Jason yelped, pushing himself off of the bed and into the corner away from all of them.

“What the fuck,” He said, breathing hard and quick. “What the fuck. You just touched me - what the hell is going on.”

“Jason,” Dick called, trying to get Jason to focus solely on him. “Jason, look at me. This is an alternate universe. Don’t you remember? I was in a meeting on the Watchtower and you came out of a portal, right?”

Tim had reached them by then, beelining to stand at Bruce’s shoulder, putting Bruce between him and Jason. Dick couldn’t remember ever being that small, when Bruce could sit down and Dick would still barely be able to see over his shoulder.

“I used...I used the code phrase,” Jason mumbled, brow furrowing. “Good grammar.”

“That’s right, Jase,” Dick said, motioning him to come a little closer. “You’re bleeding, why don’t you sit down, huh? Let Alfie help patch you up.”

* * *

As Alfred worked on closing the small wound, Dick went off to change, Tim meandered over to the Batcomputer, and Bruce tried not to make it obvious that he was looking over the scars littering Jason’s skin.

There were a few smooth ones, but they were few and far between. Most of Jason’s scars were rough and gnarled, especially those that were in places that would be hard for him to reach.

Bruce didn’t like the picture that was beginning to form in his head.

“How long have you had the suit?” Bruce asked as Dick walked out of the locker room, still scrubbing at his head with a towel.

“A few years,” Jason said shortly, staring up at the ceiling with his jaw clenched.

There was a pause as Dick came over, bringing Tim behind him. Finally, kindly, Bruce said, “Why did you put it on?”

“You think I _wanted_ this suit?” Jason demanded.

“You were wearing it, Little Wing,” Dick said quietly.

“BECAUSE YOU DIED,” Jason roared. Above them, the bats squealed, beginning to fly around at the sudden onslaught of noise. In contrast, every other member of the family had gone dead silent. “YOU ALL DIED. EVERY ONE OF YOU-”

At this, his voice broke, and he curled in on himself, tears beginning to streak down his face - the very vision of a broken man.

“Why did you all have to leave me,” He cried. Bruce shuffled closer, placing a gentle hand on his head, before making an alarmed noise and stepping into Jason’s space when his alternate son reached out and tugged desperately at his shirt. “First Dad, and Alfred. Dick and Tim, Cass and Steph, Kate, Duke. _Damian_.”

The last name was nothing short of an agonized howl, and Dick felt sick, hearing the names of family members he hadn’t even met yet named off in a litany of mourning.

Bruce was holding him now, sitting on the bed behind him and rocking them back and forth as Jason shattered.

“I would give all of this up to have them back, why can’t I have them _back…_ ”

Dick reached out, nudging Alfred and grabbing Tim’s shoulder, and the three of them retreated upstairs, letting a dead father comfort his equally dead son.

* * *

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jason said when Dick began walking down the Cave steps.

“Okay,” Dick agreed.

“I mean it, I don’t-” Jason paused as he realized what Dick had said, and instead wearily shook his head, turning back to the Batcomputer. There was a piece of paper taped over the logo on the chair, a bat symbol that Dick didn’t recognize. He patted it as he passed, sitting on the desk.

“Yours?”

“Yeah,” Jason huffed in amusement. “Tim always. He always taped his symbol over Bruce’s. Even when he was Batman, he didn’t get his own chair. Course, I still have the old chair, so what does that say about me?”

“That you miss them,” Dick replied, soft.

Jason took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Yeah. I do.”

“Tell me about them?”

Jason turned to him, blue eyes flaring green as he reached out and wrapped a hand around Dick’s wrist. “You save them, you understand me? I’m going to tell you where everyone is and you save them, Dick. You make sure that nothing happens to them.”

“I will,” Dick promised. Jason stared at him a moment more, making sure he was serious.

“First,” Jason turned back to the computer. Dick’s eyebrows rose as he realized what exactly they were looking at.

“Did you hack into the League of Assassins?”

“Obviously. Okay, look. This is Damian, our youngest brother. And this...this is me.”

Dick’s knees nearly gave out. “What do you mean that’s you?”

“I died as a teenager in my universe too, Dick. A few months later, I dug my way out of my coffin. The League picked me up before Bruce realized I was alive. Stayed with them for a few years before I came back to Gotham. But look, this must be pretty recent. There’s a note that he’s been in the Pit, so he should have his mind back. Mostly. He’ll be murderous but he can think sometimes.”

Dick felt like he was drowning. “ _What_?”

“Ah, shit. Dick, look at me. Breathe.” Jason reached out to take Dick’s hand, tapping out a rhythm and breathing loudly until Dick felt less like his head was going to explode. “Call Clark.”

“Uncle Kal. Superman!” Dick called. Jason rolled his eyes, huffing with laughter, especially when there was a red-and-blue flash and Clark was hovering above them.

“Dick?” He asked before his jaw dropped when Jason turned around in the chair. “Jason?”

“Hi, Uncle Clark,” Jason gave him a little wave, laughing slightly when Clark hauled him up and into a hug.

“Kiddo, how...you’re the other Batman we saw, huh?” Clark pulled back, far enough to see Jason’s face and cup it in one hand.

“Give the man a prize,” Jason snarked, grinning when Clark laughed. After another moment, they separated, Jason sinking back into the chair with a slight grimace while Clark leaned back on the railing surrounding the platform.

“We need - _I_ need you to check something out,” Dick told him. “This Jason is from an alternate universe. He says he died there too, but he came back to life. And-”

Dick choked on his words, blinking back the emotions rising in his chest.

“You want me to go and look at Jason’s grave?” Clark asked. Dick nodded, leaning into it when Clark rose and ruffled his hair. “I’ll go check, you go up and get your pa so he’s here when I have an answer, okay?”

With a flash, he was gone again.

“Pa,” Jason and Dick snickered together.

* * *

By the time Clark returned, his face pale and drawn, Bruce had been called downstairs and Jason had moved to a workstation, pulling multiple parts and gadgets out of the pockets of his suit and beginning to build a small device.

The look on his face said it all, but Clark still landed in front of Bruce, nodding. “He’s right. The grave, it’s empty. Jason...he dug his way out.”

“You’re positive?” Bruce asked, his hands flexing into fists.

“The damage to the coffin, it never could have happened from the outside,” Clark said, eyes distant. “It had to have been from inside.”

Jason inadvertently broke the grave mood by shocking himself on one of his pieces, pulling his hand back with a yelp, and sticking a fingertip into his mouth.

“What are you working on?” Clark asked, moving to the other side of the table. Dick jerked his head in the direction of the Batcomputer, gaining Bruce’s attention, and they headed over to examine the files that Jason had left open.

“Gotta get home,” Jason grunted, returning to his task. “My Clark’s probably going out of his mind right now. Diana too.”

“Oh?” Clark asked, pulling up a chair and sitting to watch Jason work. Jason looked up at him, huffing an unamused chuckle, a sad twist to his lips.

“You have a list of people whose heartbeats you check every day. You told me once that while you love everyone on that list, my dad was special. His heartbeat was the one that you focused on when you needed to concentrate, when you needed to be calm, when you woke up from a nightmare, his heart was always there.

“And then he was dying, and you were there, and he asked you and Diana to watch over his family, and you agreed, and you listened to that heartbeat stop. That beat was more familiar to you than your own, and suddenly you would never hear it again, not ever. But he had given you a task, and you focused on us, on his father and his children.

“And then you listened to us die, too. You heard Dick’s heartbeat stop. You felt Tim stop breathing. You heard it when Alfred had his stroke, when Cass died, when Duke drowned, when Damian was lost. All of those people that Bruce asked you to look after, and the list is down to me.”

* * *

Clark, understandably, didn’t stay long after that.

* * *

After the third shock, Jason abandoned his device, meandering back over to the Batcomputer where Dick and Bruce were still stationed.

“So,” He said, leaning back against the railing and fiddling with a stray bit of wire. “Me ‘n Dami are currently with the League of Assassins. Now Duke. Duke was the last kid you legally took in, Dad, and believe me, he and Dames used to get into all of the fights about who should be in charge - Duke’s older, but Damian always argued that he had seniority because he was here first. Not that it really mattered, of course, considering that they were the youngest, but that’s the type of kid Damian was. Is. Competitive to the core, but if anyone else tried to call us the names that he called us, they were in danger of losing a limb.”

“Where’s Duke now?” Dick asked. Jason sighed.

“With his parents. A few years from now, they’ll be hit with some Joker toxin and go missing for about six months. By the time they’re found again, the damage is irreparable. I didn’t.” Jason was twisting the wire, now, pressing into it so hard that little red welts were beginning to pop up on his fingertips. “I thought about not saying anything, because if I do, if you save them, then you’re sacrificing a chance of ever getting that son. I’m taking away the chance of you having that family member. But I know. I know that this is the right thing to do, even if it’s the painful thing to do. So. Logistics.”

* * *

After planning for a while, Alfred called everyone together for dinner, where Cass met Jason for the first time. Considering that she was still learning English, everyone was unsure of how to explain the concept of an alternate universe to her, but they did their best as everyone settled around the table.

Jason didn’t talk much as everyone ate, mostly sitting within the conversations and listening to everyone talk, at times closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. No one pushed him, though Dick, especially, made gentle attempts to draw him into the conversation.

After everyone ate, Tim had to head back to Drake Manor, so he said his goodbyes and trotted off across the lawn - it was a warm night and he planned to climb the wall bridging their properties. Jason offered to help Alfred with the dishes, drying as they were handed to him, and he frowned as he watched the boy through the kitchen window.

“Watch out for him,” He warned, wiping at a plate. Alfred, of course, was washing beside him, and Dick and Bruce had both settled at the island. Cass had slipped away after eating, but that was her usual habit.

“For what?” Dick asked.

“For the most part, his parents are just emotionally abusive. But his dad will reach a few points where there is at least a heavy threat that he’s going to hit Tim. At one point, he went into Tim’s room and pulled the tv out of the wall, basically trashed his room because he was mad that Tim wasn’t paying attention to him. Just. Watch out for him.”

* * *

Cass wanted to patrol that night, and Bruce’s knee was good enough to at least go out and supervise her, so the two of them suited up and left, if perhaps a little reluctantly. Dick refused to go out, instead dragging Jason to change into pajamas and then lay down in their dad’s bed, urging him to pick out a book for them to read, curled together. Politely, he pretended not to notice the way that Jason lingered over certain areas, curling into Bruce’s sheets to smell the detergent used by the Alfred he had lost.

Dick read to him for a while, though he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what the plot was even if it were essential to a case. He was too utterly focused on the brother in his arms to care what was going on in the book.

Finally, Jason’s eyelids were drooping, blue eyes hazy and tired. Dick stretched out, placing the book on Bruce’s bedside table and flicking the light off. He laid back down, already tugging Jason closer again.

"Will you stay?" Dick asked. He already knew what Jason's answer would be.

"You know that I can't," Jason murmured into the dark, shifting his head on the pillow, curling closer to the older brother he'd lost.

"I know." Dick agreed, frank. He shifted just enough that his lips brushed his brother's hair, kissing Jason's head. "But can we just pretend? Just for right now. Pretend that this is going to end happily."

And Jason moved even closer, and Dick held onto him, and they both fell asleep, pretending that this wasn't breaking their hearts.

* * *

The next morning found Jason back in the Cave, once again with his device. It was looking real, now, and beginning to sink in that he would be leaving very soon. Dick spent a while working out in the Cave, keeping an eye on Jason as he cursed over the small parts and fitted things into place. Finally, Dick showered and came over to the table, sitting on an extra stool and watching Jason closely.

“Stop staring at me. You’ve got your own Jason to worry about,” Jason grumbled, tinkering with the device. Dick ruffled his hair, grinning when Jason didn’t even push him away.

“Exactly, two-for-one special.” He sat down on the stool beside Jason, waiting until the other man sighed and turned to look at him. “I want you to remember this, Jason.”

“Kind of hard to forget,” Jason rolled his eyes, smirking when Dick gave him a light shove.

“I wasn’t done with my sentence, Little Wing.” He reached out and took Jason’s face in his hands, keeping steady eye contact. “I love you, okay? And so did he. He loved you so much, little brother. Remember that. Me not being there doesn’t make you not my little brother.”

Jason took a slow, deep breath, and when he turned away, Dick let him go.

* * *

With every piece of Kevlar that covered him, another layer of Jason’s mask went up, until they could barely recognize the man that they had gotten to know in his time with them. Dick watched as Bruce, out of Jason’s sightline, flinched when his alternate son checked his guns, sliding bullets into place and holstering the weapons. But this, of all things, Bruce knew he couldn’t say anything about; Jason was alone. Jason went out every night and fought, and dragged himself home, and stitched himself up, and if guns made sure that he continued to stay alive, then guns he would use.

“Ready to go?” Dick rasped. He couldn’t bring himself to be cheerful, not for this.

“Yeah.” Jason sighed. Blue eyes flicked over them all, Alfred-Bruce-Cass-Tim-Dick, before the helmet slid on and covered his face. He picked the device up from the table and turned away. “Stay alive, huh?”

Before anyone could respond, he pressed a button on the device and a portal winked into existence in front of him, identical to the one that had been on the Watchtower. There was a loud boom and suddenly, Superman was there, reaching through, grabbing almost desperately at Jason.

This Clark looked tired. Grey wound its way through his temples, and the lines on his face were deep.

He was achingly human in a way that their Clark had never shown.

“I’m okay,” Jason said, over and over, reassuring him as the alien looked him over frantically. “Uncle Clark, I promise I’m okay.”

Diana stepped through after him, her guard slowly relaxing as she took in the familiar surroundings, and then the people watching their reunion. She nodded to Bruce, and some tension seeped from her shoulders when he responded in kind. Diana, too, had a streak of grey now in her black hair, but she carried it gracefully; grief lurked in her eyes, but she mustered up a smile when the helmet turned in her direction.

“Come on,” Batman rasped, reaching out to Diana from his place in Clark’s arms. “Let’s go home.”

He didn’t look back. Not once.

**Author's Note:**

> I eagerly await any and all yelling. This fills my "Brother" square on the Bingo card; as usual, the card can be seen from the link on the series page. I won't be finishing the card this year, but I will be finishing the card. Expect at least one more work before the new year, because I want to hit 50 works before 2021.  
> Downloads are fine but please don't post this anywhere else without my permission.  
> Feel free to come catch me on [tumblr](https://iwillstaywiththemforever.tumblr.com).  
> Love you all and I will see you later!


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